Cities: Skylines AMA full transcript brings new information

This evening the Paradox and Colossal Order team took part in a Cities: Skylines AMA session and to save the hassle of trawling through Reddit’s annoying system I’ve put together this transcript of all the important points to note from the session. Taking part was Mariina Hallikainen – Colossal Order, Karoliina Korppoo – Colossal Order, Shams – Paradox Interactive, and Jacob Munthe – Paradox Interactive.

There are loads of great answers which will clear up most of the questions you may have had regarding game’s features. The bottom line is that Colossal Order are creating a city building title, and I quote, “that we deserve”.

Read on for the full transcript, you won’t be disappointed with the answers and I am updating this continuously as more comes in as the team seem to be hopping on and off.

Would someone who was bored with Sim City a long time ago actually enjoy this game?

Yes! You like zoning and placing roads right? For the record. I played and enjoyed the latest Sim City about 6 hours. We’re building a game you can play for 600 hours.

Will Cities Skylines have an unlimited money mode/option/cheat so you can create whatever city you want without having to worry about the city coffers?

Yes! You will be able to just build. It might be made as a mod, but it will be available at release.

With the built in modding tools this is definitely doable.

Is it sandbox only, or is there a regular gameplay mode as well? I’m afraid that a pure sandbox would get old a lot faster than having to budget and watch your coffers.

I’m not sure if I understand your question. Unlimited money mode is sandbox, but you can still have the unlocking features of the game, that let you build towards getting to create miracles. Even with unlimited money you would need to do certain tasks to get to the end game content.

Are you using Unity engine for this game like Cities in Motion 2 or using different engine?

Hi, Cities is built on Unity in the same way as CiM2. But we certainly have rewrote and improved on many features!

Will there be any agricultural building/zoning options? If I wanted to make a small town with farm land surrounding it, would it be possible?

Totally possible. Agriculture is in the game.

Will there be regions where we will be able to connect our cities?

There is an outside world, but you don’t see other cities. They will just conveniently buy any surplus goods your industrial area produces and ship out stuff you need.

Will there be beautification options for roads? i.e. having a garden along the middle of an avenue, having a street lined with trees, etc…

Yes, there will be plenty of options for different road types.

Coming from a transport focused playstyle, have you decided on whether you’ll be keeping the same depth there? Or will you be making sure that players don’t have to play a whole game (and spend their time managing it) within this game?

Transportation is made lighter and more streamlined, since Skylines in not about it but rather the cities. We do have many options, like planes, trains, metro and buses, but you don’t have to go to ticket prices or setting schedules.

Will we get the option of make underground and overground metros?

Currently it’s underground only. But then there’s trains also 🙂

Is there a option of naming and renaming streets? (at best, given evry a estate a number/adress – maybe automatically?)?

At the moment there no street names planned. City districts can be created and named, and each building has a name automatically generated.

What kind of DLC model will Cities Skylines be following? i.e. how much content and what type of content will be put into DLC

We are looking into something similar to Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV; Major expansions together with a patches full of free stuff, and some minor dlc besides

Generally at Paradox – we follow a “reverse peel the onion approach” – ie we make a base game that’s as solid as can be. We then follow up and add layers to the onion making the game experience deeper and bigger.

Sometimes we add really specific stuff – say Muslim rulers for Crusader Kings 2 – (with the Sword of Islam expansion) while at the same time we general gameplay improvements/features for the game – new provinces for everyone, the claim system, new events, new empires.

People who want to play the specific muslim stuff can buy the expansion. The rest get a ton of free features/content.

The idea for Cities Skylines is roughly the same. We want to keep adding a lot of free stuff and do paid DLC for stuff that’s either cosmetic or fairly specific.

As long as people keep playing and want more content we want to keep adding.

There will be some kind of pre-order bonus – so technically that’s DLC. But we’re not locking content behind DLC day 1.

Let’s temper your expectations a bit – we don’t have spaceships at launch.

Will have humor style like SC classics?

Are we Finns humorous? I’m not sure, should we try regardless?

This question is regarding parks. I think giving players robust tools for placing parks really can add realism to a city. For example, fountains, plazas, zoos, bike paths, and trails are typically found in real life cities. Will this game offer players multiple types of parks?

Yes! We are working on a tool that actually lets you create unique parks with the game assets and place those. There are also pre-made parks, naturally. We want to give the player room to be creative with parks, just having the same few types is too boring!

We’ll have to see what we come up with the parks, but I agree they are a big part of any city.

This is actually one of my favourites, I hoped you all enjoyed the park that briefly blinks by in the trailer, it was yours truelly that made it 🙂

Can you please explain a bit more what you mean with modding support? Will we (the community) be able to create and load own 3D-Models?

Yes, actually, with specially designed tools 🙂 We will reveal a bit more on the exact nature of the modding tools later, they are still in development.

Yes, that’s the plan!

Will there be events happening in Cities: Skylines?

We really love that as well, and as you say it worked great in CK2.

Cities Skylines will not have events as such at release, we wanted to focus on making a really solid core game.

However, this is on top of our wishlist as something to add later to the game!

In Cities in Motion 2 you employ a brush style to determine fare zones – will this concept be implemented in Cities:Skylines? In particular for zoning, parks/greenspace, and identifying cultural / business centers?

Yeah, this is done via the district tool where you can zone your city in different districts and set local policies and specialisations.

Cities Skylines has a built in beautification tool where you can create parks and define their in-game stats and then simply add them to your city.

I LOVE this tool, probably spend almost as much time there than in the actual game :P.

Building designed parks will be easy and fun 🙂

So, are the bridges = rollercoasters officially in?

Well, the one you see in the trailer was built by our trailer-guy Steven in-game in a few minutes, so you can make pretty weird roads/bridges.

So when you say hardcore, how hardcore are we talking? What kinds of things can we expect that will make this a truly immersive sim in terms of city building and city feel?

Somewhere between SC4 and Cities XL? We don’t want to go overboard and Dwarf Fortress it – but still allow depth. We expect modders to do really, really hardcore stuff. Depending on what people ask for we’re shift post release content/feature in that direction.

We are aiming to make a game that is easy to learn but has depth for players who really want to delve deep into optimizing the city. It’s not so much the difficulty of the game, but the amount of things you can tweak in your city.

Actually, I think this is a question that the devs are better on answering

Will there be landmarks (Ie famous like the Statute of Liberty or Eiffel Tower)?

What kind of city builder would it be if we didn’t?

So, we are looking into that, but here is also where we really hope the community will go at it. The game will ship (according to plan) with built-in tools to import 3d objects, and to be able to share them easily on Steam Workshop.

Any chance of an in-game tool to build stuff like that?

Absolutely! The game has an in-built asset importer that will allow you to create your own buildings and will use Steam Workshop to share them with other players

How much will the game cost or what price range are you aiming for?

We’re looking at starting at $29.99 – that’s HALF of some other management games. But we’ll likely have some kind of Digital deluxe edition, or even a super collectors edition (if there’s interest) – is there?

$30 is too low for a good sim game. Make it more expensive or offer me a collector’s edition.

You guys have no idea how many people are starving for a good city management. Well, maybe you do, based on how many people rushed to buy SimCity 2013.

I want to give you guys more than $30, so make that Collector’s edition become reality! And available outside US too.

We actually do know how much they’re starving. We’re them and that’s why we’re making the game. We first spoke about making this game like 4 years ago. Our hopes were dashed last year and we said “eff it – let’s a make a proper city builder ourselves”

Theyre nice fellas. SC is a fine game, it’s just not the game we’d like to play.

Why is there no enforced online mode? I heard it was a must have feature and requirement these days?

Thankfully advances in technology have enabled us to do all city management calculations locally on your PC. We don’t have to do them in the cloud anymore, which you know, was the ONLY way to do it a few years ago.

Will there different road types (american, german, english etc) just like in City xl?

We don’t have roads divided by geographical location, but there is a nice selection of roads, like decorated versions with lower noise pollution of each type, highways and special highway ramps.

The road types are not categorized by countries.

Will there be any future tech within Cities Skylines? E.g. fusion/microwave power plants, fully automated cars, personal air cars, arcologies, etc…

The game timeline lets you go a little bit into the future, so there are plausible inventions like a fusion power plant.

Hmm, this is a good question. We’re not going too far in the future, but there might be room to add some future tech there.

Will it feature regions like in the Simcity series?

Nope. It’s an interesting concept/feature if done correctly though. But we don’t expect you to depend on other players/cities in order to build a big sweet city.

There is an outside world, but it just buys any surplus your city produces and offers resources and goods if your city needs something. To get the highest tax income your city would produce everything itself, but the outside world is there to help you.

The cities will be 36 square km, not necessarily in a square

So, it will be like other titles, where you develop just one big city? Or there are districts, or something like that?

There are districts that you can set yourself and set different policies in the districts to make them be different from each other.

Yay! I’ve always wanted that. I used to put up signs in SC4 to create imaginary districts. Can I name the districts and see their names in the city?

Would someone who was bored with Sim City a long time ago actually enjoy this game?

To be honest. We’re not out to kick anyone in the balls. SC was OK. This is a different type of game.

Will there be disasters in Cities: Skylines like in the Sim City series? If so, what kind of mayhem can we look forward to?

It’s on the roadmap. We’ll see when it’s added. What kind of disaster would you like to see?

Do you plan making Steam Early Access for Cities: Skylines? Also how much will the game cost? Will it be $20 like Cities in Motion titles or will it be $50 like AAA titles? Thanks.

No Early access. It’ll be around $29.99 – half of some other management games 😉

No Steam Early Access, we aim at release a finnished product.

Price point we are looking at is 29.99 USD, a little heavier than CiM2 as it is a much bigger game, but no AAA leve

The skylines have a very newyorkish look. single skyscrapers or houses. any chance to get the “european block” modus into the game?

Paradox is a Swedish company, Colossal finnish. At least 30% of the audience will be German – you do ze math 🙂

What we are aiming at from start are modern looking cities, these are cities being built today. This means that the cities often will look a bit “American” or “Middle Eastern (think Dubai) as they are generally built more recently. But we are looking into adding more classical building, maybe something we will throw up in the Workshop?

Will the game have regions like SimCity 4 and what will be the maximum city size?

PS Don’t let this game be shit :<

We are doing our very best to not let it be shit ;D The map consists of tiles. Each tile is 2 km x 2 km and one city can have nine of those. You get to choose the tiles from 25 tiles on the map. The area is all seamless so you can have a pretty huge city! There are no regions, but there is a world outside the map that buys excess goods and ships resources if your city needs something.

There are no regions, but map tiles have attributes like a possibility for a certain outside connection (seaside for harbor, train tracks for train connection) and natural resources. So selecting map tiles to expand to lets you choose what kind of a city you want to play.

The maximum city size is 9 map tiles, one map tile is 2km x 2km. You start with the first one and then get to unlock more land for your city. PS We’ll do our best to avoid it.

How much of CIM-2 ideas will be available in skylines? (Fantastic trailer by the way!)

There’s many different road types: small, large, decorated version of each, highway, highway with noise barriers, gravel road… Transportation is streamlined from CiM 2, so the tool for making lines is easier and faster to use and no timetables or ticket prices need to be set. The timetable depends on how much budget you give to transportation: the depots get the amount of vehicles they can with the money and divide the vehicles to lines based on line length. You get income from tickets.

Parts of it will, but as Mariina said, it will be streamlined. Bunch of different transports types, including some not in CiM2, but no tickets, schedules etc

Thanks! We take all the feedback in and try to learn from our previous titles. The difference between Cities: Skylines and CIM2 is a city builder vs transit manager, so naturally we’re looking this one with new ideas.

Really looking forward to Cities: Skylines, Is there anything that any of you would really like to see in the game, but probably wont make it into the final version?

We’ve got to make a lot of tough calls for the launch version – luckily a long post launch plan is what’s worked great for our games in the pas.

My favorite that probably won’t make it: KAIJU’S!

Would you consider publishing specs for custom content creation (buildings in particular) before release? (So enthusiastic sc4 modders like me can get a head start :-)… And secondly, will wall-2-wall building placement be supported?

I’m not sure about the wall-2-wall building placement. We’ll look into the guides for modding later on and maybe can release them a little bit earlier. We’ll have to see when we’re closer to the actual release. But if you can save your 3D models in FBX format, you should be already well set.

Are buildings dependent on lots (a polygon) or do they grow dynamically based on zoning? If dynamic, can roads expand lanes and not require the building to be destroyed?

Buildings do have lots, but there are buildings of all lot sizes so there won’t be any weird looking empty space left. If you upgrade or downgrade an existing road, the zoning is preserved but if the road size changes, buildings are automatically destroyed (only zoned buildings! You can’t accidentally destroy for example a hospital) and new ones spawn.

Would you consider publishing specs for custom content creation (buildings in particular) before release? (So enthusiastic sc4 modders like me can get a head start :-)… And secondly, will wall-2-wall building placement be supported?

I’m not sure about the wall-2-wall building placement. We’ll look into the guides for modding later on and maybe can release them a little bit earlier. We’ll have to see when we’re closer to the actual release. But if you can save your 3D models in FBX format, you should be already well set.

Are there plans to generate in-game maps using external map data (e.g. OpenStreetMap, Google Maps, etc)? Most of us love the idea of running our own home towns.

As the basic goal in the game is to build a city we haven’t planned that you could generate in game maps (road networks etc). However with the map editor you’ll be able to create a landscape of your choosing to start building the city on. Importing a height map makes the landscape pretty realistic starting point.

Currently, There’re no Linux/SteamOS in the system requirements on the game’s Steam page. Will these operating systems be supported at launch (or later)?

Will the game have a third person mode? (that you can run or drive through your city)

We have no current plans for this. But you’ll be able to use the camera rather freely.

Can you llist why this is better than the new Sim City? because I bought that and got burned really bad. It looksworlds better, I just want some facts.

Instead of doing point by point comparisons I’ll paint in broad strokes.

Our cities are big 36km2

We ship with mod tools

We generally focus more on systems/features than on visuals.

Districts – you paint districts with brush tools and then can change policies/rules for them specifically. What makes Soho soho? What makes harlem harlem? It’s your policies and rules

So what’s the climate system like? All the management games I’ve played like Transport Tycoon etc. seem to be in a vaguely temperate place with deciduous forests even if maps consist of thousands of kilometers! I want to manage an oil rush town in the middle of tundra for a change! Or an entirely new city in jungle ;D

It’s a cool feature but not a focus are at launch. Like you say – it’s often added to the games as an afterthought. If we add it we really want it to impact the game in a big way.

Skylines will have different terrain types for maps. I’m eagerly expecting the artists to finish the desert terrain so I can make Dubai ;D

The game will ship with three different climate zones: Northern European/Mid-west Southern European/California-isch Dessert

Yeah, if you are talking proper weather and seasons (something Swedes and Finns know quite a bit about ;)) it is not in the game at launch. It is something that should be done properly and right and would require quite a lot of work.

Is a spanish version also coming? we had CiM1, but no CiM2 (even though we could translate ourselves the strings)

Likely. I think we need to sell 500 copies to break even on spanish. So that’s a si.

What languages ??do you want to publish Cities: Skylines?

We usually go for the “big ones”. English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Polishand also try to do Japanese and Chinese. It depends on how big the game gets. Bigger = moar languages.

I’ve never played any of the CiM titles, but you can bet your best sock that I’m interested in Cities: Skylines. I’ve been waiting for a proper city builder since SimCity 4 began to show it’s age, which was pretty much the day I got a dual-core processor. So, 2005ish?

My question is this: Will C:S have any terrain editing tools? I always enjoyed expanding shorelines in SimCity after leveling off hills, pretending that I was moving earth from one place to another.

YES. they are really fun to play with right now. The other day I made a mountain and dropped a huge drop of water on it and spent the next 5 minutes watching that water spread and settle. good times.

In Skylines that would be done in the map editor. It will be included in the game and there’s loads of nice tools for shaping terrain. You might enjoy our water system, where you can actually place water sources and they will act like real water, flowing to fill low areas.

At the moment it’s planned to be limited to map editor only. One of the reasons for this is the simulated water system Skylines has. If you would do a minor change in the terrain while in the city you might flood your city and it takes some time for the water to evaporate, which is boring because you have to wait.

I know probably can’t get specifics, but would you describe this as a more expansive or larger area to build a city on than the (very restricted) tiny room in simcity 2013? I often find that game revolves around tearing down one thing to fix something and causing another problem in the process because of the small room.

It’s a lot bigger. About 36km2.

We’ve optimized the game for cities of that size. BUT – The sweetest feature is that we’ll have an option where you can uncouple the limitation and go bigger. but that’s up to you and your hardware 🙂

I’d love to see what PCGamers Large Pixel Collider can do 🙂

Will we can make roads wider on top of the existing ones?

God I hope so. that actually made me stop another game I can’t remember the name of.

Devs? Please deliver.

Will there be hand-made buildings or they will be procedurally generated?

The buildings are handmade with love from our talented artists!

Are Trams expected in Sities Skylines and if yes, will be there overhead contact system?

Unfortunately there are no current plans for trams. Adds it to the wishlist

Will things like airports and harbors etc be ploppable (meaning that they are brokken up in small building, roads, object etc. so we are able to make them more realistic) or will they be fixed buildings?

At the moment they mostly will be fixed buildings.

Will C:SL be able to use CiM2 maps?

It’s unlikely, I’m afraid. The system is so different.

And how about a tool to convert or import maps from CIM2 to C:SL? Please take it into account. 🙂

I will definitely ask our programmers about this!

Will it incorporate some kind of CiM public transport system or will it be more in the line of ‘place bus stops in places and buses find their own routes’?

The player is allowed to make bus lines by placing drops and drawing lines, but the vehicles go to the lines automatically from their depots.

I really like this tool 🙂

As the producer of CiM2, it feels great to understand the buslines I create!

Will it be possible for citizens from one town travel to another for work? So you could have a suburban area in one zone and people will commute to work in the main metropolitan city in another?

Will be there be a way to fill in oddly shaped gaps between buildings/roads with grass or pavement? I loved this feature in Cities XL.

Is building stuff zone-based (like Sim City), or you choose what to build and where (like Tropico), or somewhere in between?

The trailer looks fairly grid-based. Will you be able to rotate buildings/zones, and how flexible is rotating (ie: can rotate 45º like in Tropico, or free rotate)

Citizens work only inside your city. But with the large map size you can have smaller cities on the same map. I like to do a suburb, then a city center and a industrial area separately. People move around the map and you just have to make sure to have good highway connections between your towns.

You can place decoration items freely. We want to help fill the odd gaps, so our grid system is made to not create many gaps and the decoration tools that are still being worked on will help with fixing the few there will be.

Building is zone based, except for city services. Basically you mark zones for residential area, commercial area, industrial area and office area, and place things like hospitals, schools and police stations yourself.

Building roads creates grid. The roads themselves are not ties to a grid, so you can place the roads in any way you want, including curved, and plop buildings next to them.

NOPE. Tbh the Vicky model is so complex it barely holds together. It’s almost too niche.

I fully expect some modders to create some super hardcore version.

Deep simulation should be really great at keeping the game interesting (especially with the events that you claim to be including in the game).

In many city builders I just build and build, and then hit a cap whereby I’ve expanded both upward and outward. At that stage I can only sit and watch. A richer management system hopefully will allow for more to do for lategame players.

I think were our strength lies is that we don’t make fire and forget games. The idea is to keep expanding upon the game and increase that cap.

Will there be some kind of beta or testing phase? Are fan forums/sites allowed?

Likely – it’s not decided yet. But likely through our forum. Fan forum/sites are of course allowed – but we’d love if you dropped by our forum once in a while too.

Will tourism be included in the game?

Yes, you should definitely make the city attractive to get that sweet tourist money in 😉

Will we can make roads wider on top of the existing ones?

Yes, you can upgrade the roads.

This question is regarding how you plan on making cities feel like they are living in breathing. For example, in SC4, the NIMBY/YIMBY system was pretty powerful and made the city feel alive. For example, you could make buildings historical, or buildings would become abandoned if there were too many NIMBY’s in the area, or the economy was bad. Furthermore, streetscaping would change based upon the wealth level of the neighborhood. I realize this is a somewhat complicated question, but what mechanics do you have in place to make cities in this game feel like they are living and breathing?

Buildings level up, becoming more fancy. There’s also low density zones for making places look more like suburbs and high density for creating a city center. It is possible to for example have an area of low level high density buildings that can look like a ghetto next to a city center of high level high density buildings. Abandoned buildings are there, and you can leave burned down buildings on the map if you like.

There are also little things, like if garbage collection facilities are overburdened, the buildings start to pile full trash cans on the curb. Or the fact that when the ground gets polluted around an industrial area, the trees on the ground become dried up and brown.

We really want the world to feel alive and are making many neat details to tell you who lives where and how they are doing!

Will buildings change? Like high-wealth buildings being demolished to build a low-wealth one in its place because of changes in the neighborhood?

Buildings will be upgraded as an area become wealthier (or the other way around), changing appearances in the process

How long is the day/night cycle? In CiM2 the 24 min = 24 hours model didn’t seem to work very well in my opinion because travel times across the city were not very realistic.

Actually, the game will not include a day night cycle. The creation of a city moves in a timeframe where a day/night cycle simply would make sense, the days would just blink by

Is there a mayor villa or a city hall planned?

Yes 🙂

I also plan to make a very tiny district around the villa and make my own laws 😀

You’ll finally get that police state you’ve been talking about. good on you.

How true will the city simulation be? i.e. when a person moves in to the city/town/village are they assigned to a house within their income bracket and live and always commute from that house

The citizens have their own house and workplace (or school) and they will visit shops and other places in the city.

Will the game have a zen mode? (aka : unlimited money)

Hi! We’ll be sure to have the zen mode there. With pretty parks.

Will you be addressing the general grayness that takes over your games? I see it even in the last video that was released. I do appreciate the style partially but want some additional beauty. And no I don’t mean cartoon/kid like, more realism.

I just fired up the game and can confirm that the game looks crisp up close – if you’re zoomed out it gets a bit more fadier (looking through clouds).

We can look into making that an option in the graphics menu. No promises though!

Let’s see if our artists vision is similar to yours. No way of knowing before later in the project.

I’ve never played any of your city games, although I’ve thought about it quite a bit and I really enjoyed SimCity even though lots of people hated it. Will I love this game? Can you explain some of the similarities and differences between this and SimCity?

You are talking about the newest SimCity, right? Skylines takes inspiration from earlier SimCity games, so it’s a bit less casual than the newest one and has more micromanagement, thought some of the optimization is optional so player who just enjoy building can play it “lightly”, without going into all the details.

Will it be possible to control the weather?

No. Unless we do like a weather control structure or something. So still no.

Will the game have heavy and light rail???

SO. SPECIFIC.

I don’t know. Devs help a publisher out

Are/will there be any “mechanics” or “measures” in place to reduce lag or pc strain in larger cities? I distinctly remember CitiesXL having this issue where middle to large cities had massive fps drops.

The game will be optimized to run on the recommended hardware for the max city size. You can uncouple the city size limiter through an option – but you and your PC will be on your own.

I’m seeing a lot of good stuff being said about infrastructure and buildings. But what about population management? How will law enforcement, fire stations, health, education, budged shit, and all that good jazz be handled?

That’s a huge question ;D Basically city services have buildings that the player can place. The buildings have an operational range that depends on the road connections they have, the budget and the size and type of the building.

For example if I build a police station, I want to place it next to a large road so the police cars can move fast to nearby locations. The amount of cars the station has depends on the budget. If my neighborhood has a very high crime rate, I would up the budget until things are in control and then try to lower it a bit to see what’s the optimal range. Patrol cars will leave the station and head out to a location where a crime is occurring. While traveling they affect the crime rate of the buildings around them. When they have gone to the crime and handled it, they will respond to the next call and lower crime rate while traveling there.

So while services are affected by roads and traffic, the different road types help out a lot and it’s not like the police have to visit each and every household to tell off the criminals.

In terms of zoning control, can we specify how dense a zone will be? i.e. light, medium, and high Also, can we tell a zone to only build within a certain density? i.e. if we don’t want urban sprawl, can the zones be more vertical instead of horizontal

There’s two different zone densities to choose from. After zoning it’s up to you to increase the land value and get the zoned area level up to better housing. We have a couple of different tools for zoning so you can do very specific stuff.

Will CSL be deep with its visuals? I.E one of the problems I always had with Cities XL was that I never got the feeling that I built a city that was actually alive… I was never immersed in it. I built a fire station but never saw a fire crew come from the fire station to put a fire out, or I built a school but never saw school buses pick up and drop off kids. It may seem weird… but just that ability to zoom in and see your police(wo)men fighting crime or saxophone players playing in the park makes me really feel like I’m building a city that has sophisticated life living in it… 😀

This is a super hard balance to strike. On one hand we’ve got 9 man/woman team working on the game – that’s really small. But we definitely want to see some visual representation for schools etc. Maxis does this really great. They’ve put a ton of work into the visuals. Unfortunately the simulation depends on the visual stuff. In other words – if the fire truck doesn’t drive up to the fire it never gets put out.

We feel it’s more important that the simulation works – that’s our first priority – second is having a good visual representation.

Will there be reports or graphics to analyze how well(or bad) is the city going? Also if we’re losing money, and where we can fix that. (Expensive taxes, bad services, and so on..)

We aim to bring you enough data to get your city really going! You can control the taxes for the zones and the expenses for the different city services.

Will building age and fall into disrepair?

No, but they can burn down or be abandoned.

Will there be reports or graphics to analyze how well(or bad) is the city going? Also if we’re losing money, and where we can fix that. (Expensive taxes, bad services, and so on..)

yes – SC does this amazingly well – we’ll do our best to give you the tools to analyze your city.

Will the be any incentive to place the major commercial districts in the centre of the city, other than aesthetics?

For example for the tourists, so they will spend money -> companies are happy and willing to pay more taxes.

But will tourists be more inclined to go to a centralised area, if that area is commercial?

This feature is not fully implemented, so we’ll look into it more closely. But the basic idea is that certain buildings attract tourists (like monuments, good transport options etc). Why not a proper commercial district?

How in depth will the economics of the city be? Part of why I still play SC4 is because the city is always growing/changing and that means the city’s finances must follow. So checking up on a particular elementary school’s funding is almost necessary or your somebody (either the teachers or the city accountant) is going to eventually get ticked off.

Is there going to be that level of micromanagement or will there be more of a Tropico approach with the three levels of funding?

I could ding questions off you 25/8.

We’re aiming for that – cities shouldn’t be static. It’ll be deeper than Tropico’s system.

Keep dingin’

Could you give any approximate game release window yet?

first half of 2015.

Another one from me (sorry for being so greedy;-): will there be in-game terraforming options? Or only in the map-editor?

It depends a little bit what you are after. Major changes are done in the map editor, but we might have something coming up in terms of the rivers. But really we’ll have to get back to this one in a couple of months.

Will we able to build car-free cities?

Basically you could build such fantastic public transportation that private cars are not needed anymore.

There will always be a few trucks to take goods from the industrial areas to the commercial areas, but those are the only ones absolutely needed 🙂

Will lot placement be better than in SimCity? Especially when it comes to things like parks – they always looked terribly out of place compared to the regular landscape around it – especially because they had to be placed against a road. Will you be able to place some objects away from the roads?

Looking very much forward to this, by the by. The video really piqued my interest.

We have decorations objects that can be placed freely. Technically they are all the things you have in parks, but with the option to place them without any limitations. This way you can for example fill the inside area of a city block if there’s some space left.

Will we see Magicka wizards walking around our cities? Could they be a disaster that happens from time to time?

No wizards at launch.

Will it be possible to customize traffic lights at crossroads?

Not at the moment, I’m afraid. The traffic lights come with certain sized roads to smooth the traffic. But hey, you can build roundabouts!

My first roundabout was more like an eggabout, but it worked super smoothly!

What is your model for how people use transit and how they choose their destinations? Will you try to model each person individually or use statistical modeling on populations, etc.?

Wow, such deep questions! All the citizens are individuals, so each one has a destination.

Will there be the possibility to upgrade/downgrade zones? and what about roads?

Upgrades for roads yes, for zones through increasing the land value.

Is there going resource management and agriculture? And the exchanges between the cities?

The outside world will buy any surplus you city produces and offer goods for your commercial districts and resources for industry. Resource management as in the sense of Sierra citybuilders – no. We have a modern money based economy, but you can let your industry areas use natural resources that pollute more if they pay you more taxes. Agriculture is one on the industry specializations, so yes it’s in the game 🙂

The natural resources can be utilized by the industry if you as the mayor allow them to. Usually using a resource (pumping oil for example) pollutes more but brings more tax income, because it is highly valued and the industry makes more money as oil industry than general industry.

Are the resources run out or is it unlimited? Must be able to create challenges: from oil to renewable energy. They are the challenges and changes in the environment that gives life to the game! Tell us all about resource management, environnment challenges, social management…. please. (example: Anno 2070) It takes the player to see the consequences of their decisions.

Resources can run out (like oil), but you will always have the option of import. So many things to talk about. Maybe we’ll take some time and tackle this topic in a dev diary later on, would you be interested in that?

And please, be realistic, do not create weird buildings like SC2013, do something realistic! Not surreal things that are not in real life. Players want realism!

We are going for realism in a sort of “hard” sci-fi route, the game will push a few years in the future and some of that will be reflected in the game

Has the public relations fiasco of the newest SimCity launch in any way influenced your design choices for this game?

Yes.

They’re system works like this: If the fire truck doesn’t arrive at the fire the fire isn’t put out. Ie their simulation depends on the visual representation. Thus the simulation goes bonkers if there’s say a traffic bug.

We want the simulation to work foremost and second the visuals.

l there be weather/climate? I spend like a life-time in creating the weather mod for sc-4 (called it the jupiter mod haha).. So it is something I’d be really excited about. (… And if your looking for beta testers…. 🙂

We will have different starting climates, but for that is it.

I love the idea of proper climate and weather, getting the streets plowed, dealing with where to dump all the snow, getting ice skating rinks up in the parks. Adding all this is on the wishlist, and doing it properly, but it will not be part of the release

What if the nuclear power plant will blow up? 🙂

But you know that’s really really really unlikely. We go for realism.

Like Mariina said. Nuclear meltdowns are highly unlikely. Realism is a big thing for us. But of course…if you cut funding….

It’s not that realistic to happen. Maybe we’ll add accidents at some point, but for now it’s all about producing electricity.

How big population could we reach on the average PC?

Great question – to be honest we can’t answer that right now. A few more months of development when the simulation layer is more mature we’ll be able to give you a more accurate answer.

Is there a population size where you go: “Fuck I have to buy this game now” – that would be helpful for us to know.

And there I went giving an answer that I felt was exactly that. I want this game now! Also all the citizens are unique, so it increases their value.

Will you have schoolchildren?

Yes, and old people too!

I have another one – will pollution / traffic / development / parks / schools produce positive/negative influences on development? Additionally will NIMBYism (Not In My Backyard) occur?

Yes on the first part. Kinda to the second. You’ll be able to create districts through policies. thus creating hipster/militant/business neighborhoods – they’ll behave differently to different things. Some of them might not like change.

Could we flood the city by destroying the dam or smth like this?

Not at launch.

We to tell you the truth it will always be possible to flood the city if you try very hard ;D The water simulation allows water to accumulate in one place and over flow. What would happen if you flood the city is that the water eventually evaporates and you can go on playing as before. But we will make flooding a thing that does not happen easily, because it would suck if someone did it accidentally. And to do that on purpose you need a bit of skill 😉

I sort of managed (not on purpose though :()

Will you have visual represention of wealth/poverty of neighbourhoods (graffity, trash on streets)? Or road degradation (potholes, cracks) (e.g. Due to heavy use and lack of maintenance)?

Yes. But we won’t go overboard with it 🙂

Will you add Oculus Rift support (with proper UI)?

Not at launch likely. If we come up with a good way to do oculus – we’ll consider it.

You mentioned mod tools, could you elaborate a little bit more on that? (Map editor, Building editor…. something else?)

Map editor, asset importer, allow changes in the gameplay… We’re developing a lot of stuff at the moment and will tell you all about this later on.

As would most of the games. That’s why we are working so hard on the modding for Cities: Skylines!

Will the game have heavy and light rail???

Well, are we using the American or UK definition of heavy rail?

Having discussed this a bit, if you with heavy rail mean rail that can take freight, then yes 🙂

The role of light rail is mainly taken by subways in the game.

I think there is some American / European definition confusion – I believe by heavy & light rail the question is will there be subways (heavy) & trams (light rail).

Well, according to Wiki: In North America, the American Public Transportation Association defines a heavy rail system as an electric railway with the capacity to handle a heavy volume of traffic.[1] The term is often used to distinguish it from light rail systems, which usually handle a smaller volume of passengers.

In North America, heavy rail can also refer to rapid transit, when referring to systems with heavier passenger loadings than light rail systems,[1] but distinct from commuter rail and intercity rail systems. It is characterized by high-speed, passenger rail cars running in separate rights-of-way from which all other vehicular and foot traffic are excluded.[8]

In the United Kingdom, heavy rail refers to conventional railways forming part of the national network, including commuter, intercity, high-speed rail, rural and freight services, as distinct from metro, light rail and tram lines, people movers and similar.

Will there be scenarios/challenges? (ie take a small village turn it into a metropolis with certin limitations)?

This is something we are looking into, but nothing is decided as of now. The devs can help me on exactly how much of this you will be able to mod.

Will you have visual represention of wealth/poverty of neighbourhoods (graffity, trash on streets)? Or road degradation (potholes, cracks) (e.g. Due to heavy use and lack of maintenance)?

Things don’t wear down in the game currently. But the different levels and zone types allow you to simulate ghettos, suburbs and places where rich people live.

How many simulation speeds will there be?

At the moment we have three and they feel quite sufficient. You can also pause the simulation but still build things.

3 and pause.

I have a question regarding bridges (road/track). Will we have different types of bridges and not just one generic bridge model? The ones in CIM2 are quite bland and get boring after using a few.

Looking forward to this game and hope it will be as good as Cim/Cim2. Thx!

It depends what size of a road you are building, since the bridges are tied to the roads you build before hitting the water.

Will we able to dump the garbage off a map border? 🙂

No, but you’ll have enough options to destroy it in the map area you have available.

If there will be a disaster, the city population will be settle in dorms, which I’ll build?

IF there are disasters people will either die. Or move elsewhere. If you build it they will come.

What was the funniest moments/bug (or moments/bugs) you had in the development of the game so far?

A few months ago we had cars/population but no pathfinding. So everyone just floated 20m above ground and floated to their destination. It liked one of those shots of Coruscant from Star Wars where there are lanes of all the airspeeders.

You mentioned mod tools, could you elaborate a little bit more on that? (Map editor, Building editor…. something else?)

Sure!

First of all we will have a lot of built in tools: Map editor, 3d-importer with building editor, beautification tool.

Besides that we also try to make the actual code, or at least bits of it, available. Unity is not the most open engine, so it required a bit of work, but we are trying as good as we can.

Rewards, business deals – will there be?

Examples: Industry tycoon wants to build a massive factory with lots of jobs but lots of pollution. Business man has a plan to build a mega-mall, lots of traffic with it. In & Out Burger has awarded your city a new burger franchise, delicious but increases obesity.

You will be able to favour different industries through the policies. Also depending on your style to play the game you will be offered certain monuments as rewards.

So, for a newcomer to these types of games, how will you help us out ease into the game? Is there a robust tutorial? How will noobs know when something is a terrible, terrible idea?

Tutorials and I can almost guarantee there will be great Let’s plays by Youtubers.

There is what we call an in-game guide. It’s basically a system that tries to remind you if there’s something wrong with your city. For example if there’s an area that has no electricity, if you leave it that way for a few game weeks (a few minutes) the guide will ask if it’s intentional or should you perhaps give the dudes living there some electricity. It’s quite nice, it already reacts to the most common problems and tells what should be done about them.

There’s also the unlocking, so players can gradually easy into the game, you don’t have to start with all tools and respond to all needs. The unlocking also makes the player set their own pace. A very skilled player unlocks everything very fast, but a less experienced one can take the time to get to know each city service as they unlock and only then proceed to unlock more.

How many forms of transportation are you planning to have? I loved using the NAM mod in Simcity 4 to build trams, even though it took hours to manually place each tile…

About 5. this is prime target for expansion if the game does well

How detailed will the simulation of inhabitants of my city be? I understand from what you said at gamescom that there will be no simulation of every car/worker/etc., and I get that that wouldn’t be possible given the huge cities you are planning to make possible. But can I click on a house and see where all the people living there work and how long they commute etc.?

We’re working on the information you will be able to see of each citizen at the moment. They all have a house, a job etc. Though the game really is more about the city than individual citizens. What kind of information would you like to see?

Ponds, streams, waterfalls yes, also many tree types and gorgeous mountain textures (I’m very proud of our artists!). No animals planned at the moment, but they are a very good idea!

We’ll have to see about the sounds. Will discuss with the team tomorrow for sure!

How will the peds be handled? Will they have permanent homes/work places (unless they move or get fired) or will they just find new homes and jobs like… some other sim game. I honestly never followed a ped in CIM2 to see if their home/work remained constant.

It won’t be crazy deep but there will be stuff there. The protagonist in this game is the city – not every single joe out there.

Well it remains constant unless they have a reason to move. For example when young adults start a family they need a bigger house.

Are you want to create a catastrophe of forest fires?

That would be cool.

That’s a good idea for the future, yet devastating.

What options will there be for city revenue other than property taxes? Specifically, will we have any of the following: -sales tax -toll roads/bridges -public transit fares -parking fines/parking permits

All the income is handled through taxes (different for each zone) and budgeting city services.

All the zoned areas pay tax. Industrial area pays tax for producing goods, commercial area pays tax when they sell goods and citizens pay tax based on their income. You can also gain money from public transport tickets.

You have such cool fluid simulation! Will there be player made canals with locks and gondoliers? 🙂

That’s an awesome idea! We had not planned it but maybe I’ll have a look at what we can do, I’d love canals 🙂

What will the public transit setup be like? A mild CIM where you place the stops and create a line or will it be more like SC4 where you just plop some stops down and let the computer brain thing worry about the routes/times/etc?

I didn’t spot any bus lanes in the video, but I also didn’t spot any trams, so I supposed that kind of answered my bus lane question…

How will building come to fruition? Will there be a small construction phase or will they just appear, a la CIM? Will building “upgrades” be handled the same way when the population requires it?

Light CiM is the best description, you will be able to create your own bus lines for example.

Buildings will have a small upgrade time, yes

Is there a limit of the number of neighborhoods like we had only 4 ticket zones in CiM2?

We don’t actually have that feature in Cities: Skylines at all. Though you will be able to create different districts to the city.

I mean how many?

As many as you want 🙂 You can paint the area of the district yourself.

Haven’t seen this yet… What games do you four (and the devs) enjoy playing? Sim games or not.

But then a part two: what sim games do you four (and the devs) enjoy playing? Any that you draw from? Any lesser known/low simulators you enjoy? I’m always looking for new ones.

Shams – Right now I’m playing a lot of Kerbal Space Program, Dota 2, Zelda: A Link between worlds, Skyrim, CK2 and I just started on the Pillars of Eternity Beta.

My all time favorite sim games are Transport Tycoon and Caesar 2.

Try Kerbal!

KarakiibaK – Just before the AMA started I finished a rift in Diablo 3, it’s been my most played game for a while ;D I’ve played all the Diablos so far. Another one I enjoy is Godus, I’m trying it out on a tablet but played the PC version when the early access started. I love RPG’s like Baldur’s Gates and my absolute favourite game ever so far is Planescape: Torment.

As for simulation games that have had an effect on Skylines, I love Sierra’s citybuilder series. Even when it’s quite different from what we are doing, the same feeling of the world being alive is something I strive for. Black & White series had a lovely freedom in placing buildings in the world and the map size and zoom level were great. New titles that are some sort of simulation/city games would be Banished and Godus which I already mentioned. Banished is really small scale, but it’s a nice little toy to play around with. I recommend the animal farmer challenges, it’s awesome to have 800 chickens or so ;D Godus is a god game, but it has very pretty graphics and building towns is done neatly.

JMunthe- For me it is kerbal space program, Skyrim, EUIV (a lot :D), Fallout New Vegas and some Company of Heroes 2. Lesser known sim games… I loved Ceasar 2, not sure if it is available anywhere these days.

Can pedestrians walk everywhere, or only on sidewalks? Will there be special pedestrian infrastructure? Bikes?

Pedestrians walk on sidewalks and cross streets at crossings. They also use pathways. Currently there are no bikes planned, but they’d be a really nice addition!

Personally, I’d like to see plazas and malls full of people. Many people like them 🙂

Oh plazas we do have! I’m sorry, I forgot about them 😀 People also walk in parks and go to see monuments, so for monuments that have area around them (like a statue) they can walk and stand near them also.

How will airports be built? Will they just be different sizes of lots (like OpenTTD) or will you be able to build the airports yourself (i.e. lay the taxi lanes and runways)?

This is also one of the things we’re not done with yet, so no definite answer. Most likely there will be an option to place the entire airport at once.

How about airports and seaports? Are they pre-built complexes or modular?

They are planned to be simple placeable buildings at the moment. We might look into having a few sizes, but probably not at launch. We have our hands full but I just want to have planes flying in the game!

Will be simulation as building is growing? I mean something like construction or it will be just like in Cities XL – hop and it is?

In Skylines buildings level up if you provide them with good services and high land value. I’m not sure if you mean a building animation, but we will have scaffolding and cranes to show something new is being built.

Will there be comets?

Not at launch!

Will there be comets?

It will be available passenger train and freight? Or both?

There’s both freight transport and passenger (tourists and raw materials) moving to the city.

Besides surplus goods being sold to the outside world, can we also sell power and water? Will contracts be possible to get rid of waste from our cities so we don’t have to deal with besides having collection?

Unfortunately you cannot sell power and water. What you could do if you produced too much is to lower the budget so the facilities produce just the amount you need and don’t cost you extra. You can destroy waste in your city with an incineration plant so you won’t end up drowning in it!

We don’t have such contracts planned.

1) Will religious structures be a thing? (I thought that was an interesting late addon to Simcity)

2) Are there any plans to implement cities of a certain style (i.e. Simcity 4’s ability to have 1940s NYC, 1890s(or whenever) Chicago, etc.) or will this be left to modders? I for one think it adds a level of immersion if you can solidly place your city in a place and time other than generic contemporary America (that said, generic contemporary America has never looked better).

edit: I wish it were easier to ask questions that didn’t bring in Simcity in some way, but I suppose it’s inevitable.

1: Religion sounds like a great idea for an expansion.

2: Yes and we expect modders to help.

“Do you hear that Mr Andersson? that’s the sound of inevitability”

How detailed will the underground infrastructure be? Will there be water pipes, sewage pipes, underground power lines, etc… that we’d have to place?

Detailed. It’s exactly what you’d expect for city builder.

You’ll place the water/sewage pipes and underground metro. It will be very simplistic view for the underground to make it easy to build in.

Will there be ways to have zero emissions waste processing or a very good recycling program to have as little waste as possible?

The idea is to be able to do really specialized cities. All public transportation for instance etc.

Will be possible to build city in a “old town” style? I mean squares, churches, no-cars streets…?

Yes – in a way. But definitely with all the specialized stuff through modding.

Not at launch, but we’re seeing a lot of options for the styles coming up in the future also with the help of modders. Though there will be pedestrian paths and squares!

One of the things I actually really liked in the new Sim City was the ability to place a utility/service building and then gradually expand it with additional functionality as my city grows instead of replacing it completely. Are there any plans for something similar in Cities: Skylines?

Really enjoyed CiM2, and could absolutely see the potential for it to be a full-fledged city builder. I know CO and Paradox can deliver what we’re all after.

The modular expansion of existing buildings we don’t have, though some upgrade options are available for certain assets.

Thanks for your kind words!

One of the things I actually really liked in the new Sim City was the ability to place a utility/service building and then gradually expand it with additional functionality as my city grows instead of replacing it completely. Are there any plans for something similar in Cities: Skylines?

Really enjoyed CiM2, and could absolutely see the potential for it to be a full-fledged city builder. I know CO and Paradox can deliver what we’re all after.

The modular expansion of existing buildings we don’t have, though some upgrade options are available for certain assets.

Thanks for your kind words!

Are you going to correctly represent Nuclear Power Plants instead of making them ridiculous exploding city deathtraps like so many other city builders do?

Well before I joined the game industry I always thought I’d end up working in one. So I think I know what the realism is with the nuclear power and we go for realism first.

What about the taxation system? Will there be only residential, commercial, industrial or other types inside the districts mechanics? If you need to cut spending, there are strikes? Final two question: there will be the tunnels and elevated roads, like SimCity? Is there any hope that the Italian language is included in the game? Thank you. Sorry for my bad english.

There’s different taxation for each zone. There will be elevated roads (see the trailer for demonstration of the flexibility). As for the languages, I’ll let the good guys from our publisher answer that one.

Can I choose the height of the buildings? I mean If it is high value of land in the city center for example – it will build only skyscrapers or can be also normal-high buildings? Do I will have some influence on the height of buildings? I dont wanna have only high-rise buildings in the center.

It depends how you zone and what the land value is.

What impacts more on the framerate: the map size or the number of agents/simulations?

The amount of objects visible on the screen is the heaviest on the framerate.

Do you plan to release this as a 64 bit only game? From some of the interviews for the other sim game, it sounded as if they basically ran out of memory to do the really large maps due to all the assets they had assigned. If you do plan on a 32 bit game, how will you get around this?

This is a complicated question and I will have to refer to our programmers on this one.

The road construction tool is similar to that in CiM2? I remember how hard it were to build a nice looking bridge or the intersection. I had to build and demolish pieces of road on and on and on. Will tere be something like “planning mode” when you could modify the spline without wasting money?

You can create custom road pieces with the modding tools to use in game.

It’s improved this time around.

Can I choose the height of the buildings? I mean If it is high value of land in the city center for example – it will build only skyscrapers or can be also normal-high buildings? Do I will have some influence on the height of buildings? I dont wanna have only high-rise buildings in the center.

Yes – in a way. You can create cities that look like real cities. You can create Stockholm. Stockholm has very few highrises. One basically. That’s were the Paradox HQ is located – COINCIDENCE?

What impacts more on the framerate: the map size or the number of agents/simulations?

It’s a combination of both.

We’re optimizing the game on the recommended hardware for the max city size (36km2) so it should run fine.

IF you want to go bigger – you can remove the size cap in the settings – but then you and your PC are on your own 🙂

Are there plans for a city builder ai implementation? I would love to grab a beer, lean back and see the ai build a city

Adding it to the roadmap – would be crazy cool.

Wouldn’t it be easier for us to just hire a guy to play the game for 24/7 for a week or so and stream that? Calculates programming resources for ai implementation vs hiring a guy for a week

How big will the maps be in real world terms? Will there be a limit/will it be user-defined, or will it be based on categories (small/medium/big vs 5 sq miles, 7 sq miles, 3.14159 sq miles)? Will there be mod support for bigger maps than what’s built in?

Running out of space/running into caps in a sim game always gets depressing, especially when I go back to play it 5 years later when all hardware bottlenecks have been removed, making the caps and limits feel artificial anachronistic, rather than something that makes sense from a game play standpoint (I’m looking at you, Age of Empires series)

Edit: I see you answered the first and second questions further down the list than I got – sorry. I haven’t seen anything in reference to third question, though.

Edit 2: Found an answer to the third quite a ways down. For those who somehow found my post, but not the others, the answers are:

36km2 in 2kmx2km tiles (9 tiles/game)

User-defined, kinda, see 3

The game is optimized for 9 tiles, but users can have an (as I interpreted it) arbitrarily large map at the expense of performance.

It’s difficult to foresee what the modders will come up with, but I would assume someone is crazy enough to try and build huge cities. We recommend staying in the tested area of 36km2 🙂 Which should be plenty of space to build your dream city!

Maybe stupid question but I try… Will there be a Polish language version? Is it depends on you or not? And immediately the second question: Are there any tourist attractions such as monuments, museums, theaters, zoos?

I’m not sure about the Polish language, since that is a question more for the publisher. There will be tourist attractions in the game!

In the game, in addition to the policies of the districts, there will be issues related to politics and administration in the broad sense, for instance elections, advisors and councilors, departments? Thank you.

Political setting is not planned, but is a great idea for an expansion!

-Will there be any old cities, that you have to expand on in modern days keeping in mind the city’s identity? You know, to give each city a cultural feel, and not look all the same. Breaking out of its medieval walls and expand on them like in a lot of European cities.

-Can we plan our cities to connect them with others’?

-Is there an option to set the density, height, and just general ruling look on certain suburb houses?

-Can we have a general view on what we expect in the transportation grids: Metro, highways, pavements, bicycle lanes, help lanes, types of roads, railways, ports, planes…) ?

-Will there be any resources in the site to exploit maybe in a sustainable way that effects the design?

-Will there be any special buildings? Something to stand out above the average? (Eiffel tower, Burj Khalifa, etc..)

-How much can we control the gardens, landscape, and rivers?

Im sorry I took it too seriously.

Serious can be good! We’re going for a modern look in the cities and the size is 36km2 with no neighbouring cities to connect with (you are free to build several smaller cities in one map, though). The houses are zoned with different density and will level up with the increase of land value. Though you can always import your own buildings and use them in game.

For the transport we have 5 different types to handle outside connections and inner city traffic. The advanced road building tool gives quite a lot of freedom to building realistic road networks. There will be some resources to exploit as well as special buildings to place, or monuments as we call them. You will have much control over the decoration of the city with individual assets as well as custom parks etc. I hope I answered all your questions!

Thank you for the answers and of course thank you for your game! Now my last question: in SC4 there are ordinances. They are something like a trade off and bring a depth to the gameplay. Will there be something similar in your game?

We do have different policies in the game. You can set them globally or by district.

Hi! I have recently moved to Finland as a freelance audio designer.

What is the market like in this country right now, especially for someone living in the Oulu area?

Also, I love these kinds of games, Cities XL is one of my favourite sandbox games of all time. Are you planning to add anything innovative to the experience that wasn’t provided in any other game of it’s type (or maybe that’s a secret)

Welcome to Finland. I today’s global world it doesn’t matter so much where you are located if you are willing to travel when needed. I really can’t say much for the market for audio design unfortunately.

Our innovation is creating a classic sandbox city builder with solid gameplay and robust modding tools for everyone to start creating their dream cities. We want to have a close relationship with our fans and create game rather with them than for them.

Will we have protractors, rulers and copying tools? More expansive tools to help with aligning roads and building more complex streets would be nice.

Not for the launch, but creating aligned roads and precise work should be possible with the advanced road building tool.

Comments

Very good AMA – I don’t feel as though the devs skirted many questions. Looking forward to seeing more, oh..and MOD support!

murray

Thanks you guys!!!!!!

I will buy this the second it comes out!!

Ruben Khodzhayev

I think that the next generation of city builder should strive to bring something more to the table which hasn’t been done before. Not simply re-polishing old ideas for today’s hardware. There are countless ideas which have potential for exploration. For instance, I don’t believe i have encountered a game which considered natural lighting and it’s necessity for green space. Some had mentioned that they prefer to play using a cheat to have unlimited money enabling them to focus on other aspects which they enjoy. This to me brings the main idea to mind, why is money your high score? A city is not a business it’s aim should not be to produce income. The city is home to business but the city should be run by public servants and for the interest of the public, not for profit. I would really love to see a innovative system which encourages the development of sustainable, positive havens of culture and intellect. I would love to see a non-capitalist mode, or a post-apocalypse rebuild mode, or an alien world colonization. Something to remind us that cities are not just engines of economy and they don’t have to be. If there is a ranking system, I imagine income would decide but is that really the best that we can offer? I bet the best city builders would probably go unnoticed in such a system. So this is not really a question but more of a suggestion.

A, C. Bayne

Will Cities Skylines be out on CD

Eric

>>A city is not a business it’s aim should not be to produce income.<< A real city is absolutely a business where pretty much everyone in government is out to do as much with the money that is available (budget), get paid as much as they can (like any employee or CEO would do), and help make the city as much money as possible by taxing this or that or charging for whatever. If the only goal of a city was to "serve the public" it would go bankrupt relatively quickly. Subways would stop. Police would go home. Firefighters would leave. Traffic lights would turn off.